


Condensation

by The_Evil_Twin



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Amnesia, Crossover, Dangan Ronpa Spoilers, Don't copy to another site, Gen, Not Beta Read, One Shot, don't copy to an app
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:08:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25320643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Evil_Twin/pseuds/The_Evil_Twin
Summary: Skull doesn't remember most of his past. Reforming your entire body after getting crushed by a hydraulic press will do that.
Relationships: Arcobaleno & Skull (Katekyou Hitman Reborn!), Oma Kokichi & DICE
Comments: 7
Kudos: 263
Collections: Blank Slate 2.0, Identity Crisis, Quality Fics





	Condensation

**Author's Note:**

> *kicks the door down* Surprise! Bet you weren't expecting this from me! That's fair, I wasn't expecting this from me either.

The Arcobaleno didn't know much about Skull, nor did they care to. Skull was simply a civilian pulled into their orbit for something he couldn't control. What could he possibly have to offer them? He was childish, flighty, had no fighting capabilities whatsoever, and no training with his flames. He had no close friends nor family, so no one was going to come looking for him if something happened. What had he ever accomplished?

~~_"He caused mayhem the world over as the leader of the secret organization D.I.C.E."_ ~~

~~~~Unfortunately, repeated exposure made learning about one another inevitable. Thus, the other Arcobaleno learned more than they had ever wanted to about their Cloud. (Didn't they?)

One: Skull hated killing. He flat-out refused to do it no matter how much the other Arcobaleno cajoled, bribed, or threatened him. One of the few times Reborn indicated any sort of respect for Skull was when he stared down the barrel of Reborn's gun on a mission, prepared to die for his belief. When asked why, he childishly responded, "It's my one rule!" Clearly, however, he got over his hangups given that he joined the Carcassa. Reborn subsequently lost the little respect he had gained for Skull. (Skull never got over it. He never killed, even when working for the Carcassa.)

_~~"And by "mayhem," I mean petty nonviolent crimes and harmless pranks."~~ _

Two: Skull was appalled by Checker Face. It wasn't just that Checker Face had taken them from their homes and careers and bodies, oh no. Sure, those things made Skull as angry as the rest of them, but they weren't the reason why he loathed Checker Face.

It was the checkerboard motif.

He'd gone off about it once during one of the Arcobaleno's semi-regular bitch-about-their-lot-in-life sessions, one of the few Arcobaleno meetings Skull was allowed to attend. And it wasn't that Skull hated chess or checkerboards or whatever, no, Skull hated that Checker Face was using the checkerboard as his alias and motif especially.

"He doesn't deserve it," he'd ground out around his thumbnail as the rest of the Arcobaleno looked on, bemused.

Three: Skull really, really liked grape soda.

Four: Skull had a complicated relationship with the color pink. Specifically, hot bubblegum pink. Any other shade was fine, and Skull once proudly boasted nails painted pink by Yuni for two straight weeks, but the one time he had an upset stomach and Luce offered him Pepto-Bismol he chucked the entire bottle out the window and muttered something about blood.

"Maybe he was involved with that whole Dangan Ronpa thing, kora," Colonello joked during a post-mission briefing that Skull had been kicked out of.

The Dangan Ronpa Event was truly an example of the worst the mafia had to offer. A smaller family had made a habit of kidnapping kids, brainwashing them with Mist flames, pitting them against each other in killing games, and streaming the results on the Dark Web. The whole thing had somehow gone undetected for 52 seasons and only came to light when three of the survivors had escaped the family's grasp and gone public. Even then, the story might not have been believed if a small group of street kids - a group likely to be ignored in any other scenario - hadn't raised a huge fuss when their beloved "leader" went missing, presumed taken. They'd made fliers (an artist's rendition of their leader, somewhat sloppily drawn,) staked out police stations, called radio stations incessantly, and basically raised such holy Hell that the Vindince had to step in lest the police do so. An investigation had concluded that the group's leader had indeed been one of the kidnapped children and had perished in the last "game," his corpse no longer even recognizable, leaving mafia members everywhere shaking their heads at the loss of what was almost certainly a Sky. A sanitized version of the story was distributed to the public and the Vindice wiped that family off the map for coming so close to breaking omertá. The three survivors and the small gang had been pulled into the underworld and fallen off the radar. ( It was a shame, really. A previously unknown and inactive Sky that seemed to have gathered an entire set of elements on his own would have certainly thrown the underworld for a loop; Reborn especially mourned the loss of potential chaos.)

As a civilian, it was impossible that Skull had been directly involved, but the Arcobaleno concluded that it was possible he had known one of the street children or seen the publicly released version of events. Skull's disgust at the Dangan Ronpa Event was understandable but his distaste for that particular shade of pink was unwarranted and a liability. Reborn made sure he was aware that his actions towards Luce were unacceptable.

_~~"Anyway, Kokichi had ten loyal goons working for him. These goons were like friends and family."~~ _

There was one other fact about Skull that the Arcobaleno dismissed at the time and later derided as a lucky guess.

Skull distrusted Luce. (Skull distrusted everyone.)

Oh, he had been perfectly cordial upon their first meeting, laughing at her jokes and boasting about himself incessantly. The problems began when Checker Face put the Arcobaleno under her command.

Luce was a strong Sky and the others were drawn to that strength and to her apparent kindness. It was expected that Skull, as a Cloud, would be more resistant to joining her than the other Elements, but as time went on he only grew more and more detached. Luce tried to befriend him and he crowed that he had over 10,000 great friends already. She tried to mother him and he told her that he already had a mother and that she could do anything. She tried to treat him as a subordinate and he spouted some nonsense about supreme leaders. No matter what she tried, Skull reacted the exact opposite of the way she wanted him to, keeping Luce from completing her set of elements.

It didn't save him.

~~_"Is it wise of us to trust other people wholeheartedly in this kind of situation?"_ ~~

~~~~Everyone and everything was so different after the Representative Battle of the Rainbow that no one noticed that Skull had changed too. Where before he would cower, he was suddenly biting back with pointed comments and cruel smiles. For instance, against Verde:

"What use even are your inventions? I've known cows who could make better stuff than you!"

Or against Kawahira, not that anyone would have believed either of them.

"You're _disgusting_. Hiding how you toy with other's lives under the guise of hope and a game... you piss me off the most!"

Or even against Tsuna when he cornered him after the boy had a meeting with Reborn.

"I don't think it's good to lie to yourself, y'know? You may have made some good friends from all this, but you're not enjoying it at all. How could a game that you're forced to play be fun, after all? If you're gonna stick around for this mafia thing, you need to show them what a real leader is willing to do!"

So when Skull finally left for parts unknown, no one was particularly worried. He was just a civilian after all, pulled into the Mafia for something he couldn't control. He was childish, flighty, and had little training. No one was going to go looking for him. What threat could he possibly pose? There was nothing he could accomplish.

~~_"I'm lying, of course."_ ~~

**Author's Note:**

> Is Kokichi a Cloudy Sky or simply a Cloud with subordinates like Hibari? That's up to you to decide! Either way, DICE was his territory, so make of that what you will. Also, if he is a Sky, imagine him was starting to harmonize with Kaito during chapter 5 for some extra angst.
> 
> And a special thank you to the Dangan Ronpa wiki for providing me with quotes.


End file.
